THE MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam is showing the exhibition In Dialogue - Hasso Plattner Collection: Art from the GDR in spring 2025. The second presentation of the collection focuses on dialog as an approach to the art of the former GDR.
Im Dialog shows around 50 collection works by artists such as Gudrun Brüne, Hartwig Ebersbach, Ulrich Hachulla, Rolf Händler, Bernhard Heisig, Johannes Heisig, Peter Herrmann, Ralf Kerbach, Walter Libuda, Peter Makolies, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Harald Metzkes, Stefan Plenkers, Gerhard Richter, Arno Rink, Cornelia Schleime, Willi Sitte, Gabriele Stötzer, Erika Stürmer-Alex, Werner Tübke and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, mainly from the period from 1966 to 1992.
Ralf Kerbach, Dresden Friends, 1983/84, Hasso Plattner Collection © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2024
The different perspectives of the artists and the contexts in which the works were created are highlighted in two exhibition chapters. The painting Portrait Henry Schumann (1968) by Arno Rink, which shows the art historian and critic Schumann in Rink's studio, as well as his book Ateliergespräche, provide the impetus. In this publication, published in 1976 by Leipzig-based publishing house VEB E.B. Seemann, 20 artists have their say in an exchange with Schumann. Established personalities such as Bernhard Heisig and Werner Tübke meet positions with unconventional artistic training and career paths such as Peter Hermann. This unusual mixture and the focus on the individual voices of the artists signaled a relaxation in cultural policy at the time, which was, however, impaired in the same year (1976) by a series of cultural-political and social events such as the expatriation of the poet and songwriter Wolf Biermann.
Im Dialog is also the occasion for a new series of studio talks that the curator Daniel Milnes is holding with artists from the collection and which will be published as a podcast series to accompany the exhibition. In this context, works from the collection will be examined from the artists' perspective and the question of how art created in the GDR is seen and shown today will be explored.
February 1 to August 10, 2025
